Stephen Law

What does secular humanism (or, as we say in the UK, humanism ) involve? In Humanism: A Very Short Introduction (OUP 2011) I suggest that most of those who sign up to secular humanism sign up to following: 1. Secular humanists place particular emphasis on the role of science and reason . 2. Humanists are atheists . They do not sign up to belief in a god or gods. 3. Humanists suppose that this is very probably the only life we have . 4. Humanists usually believe in the existence and importance of moral value. 5. Humanists emphasize our individual moral autonomy and responsibility . 6. Humanists are secularists in the sense that they favour an open, democratic society and believe the State should take neutral stance on religion. 7. Humanists believe that we can enjoy significant, meaningful lives even if there is no is a God, and whether or not we happen to be religious. Now some readers may be thinking, ‘But hang on, you haven’t mentioned natu...

Here's my central criticism of Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN). It's novel and was published in Analysis last year. Here's the gist. Plantinga argues that if naturalism and evolution are true, then semantic epiphenomenalism is very probably true - that's to say, the content of our beliefs does not causally impinge on our behaviour. And if semantic properties such as having such-and-such content or being true cannot causally impinge on behaviour, then they cannot be selected for by unguided evolution. Plantinga's argument requires, crucially, that there be no conceptual links between belief content and behaviour of a sort that it's actually very plausible to suppose exist (note that to suppose there are such conceptual links is not necessarily to suppose that content can be exhaustively captured in terms of behaviour or functional role, etc. in the way logical behaviourists or functionalists suppose). It turns o...